Madrid: Barcelona are one win away from retaining their La Liga title after Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar all scored as they thrashed Espanyol 5-0 in the Catalan derby on Sunday.
Real Madrid moved into second place, a point behind Barca with one game remaining, as they racked up an 11th straight La Liga win, 3-2 over Valencia, thanks to two goals from Cristiano Ronaldo.
However, Atletico Madrid’s title hopes are over as they lost 2-1 at already relegated Levante. Barca will be champions with victory at Granada next weekend, who crucially are now mathematically safe from relegation after a 4-1 win at Sevilla.
Real Madrid travel to Deportivo la Coruna on the final day of the season.
Elsewhere, Sporting Gijon remain out of the relegation zone thanks to their superior head-to-head record with Getafe after the two drew 1-1.
Rayo Vallecano also remain in the bottom three after losing 2-1 at Real Sociedad.
Barca got off to a perfect start when Messi curled a delightful free-kick into the top corner. Ivan Rakitic had a second ruled out for offside minutes later. However, they had to wait until seven minutes into the second half for the second as Messi teed up Suarez before the Uruguayan added his second for his 56th goal of the season.
A howler from Lopez handed Rafinha an open goal to tap home his first goal since suffering a serious knee injury at the start of the season, before Neymar rounded off the scoring.
Madrid shrugged off the absences of Gareth Bale and Luka Modric through injury to move above Atletico. Ronaldo fired Real into the lead before Karim Benzema doubled the lead despite some offside doubts.
Rodrigo halve the deficit but Ronaldo quickly restored Real’s two-goal advantage only for Andre Gomes’ strike to ensure a nervy finish despite being down to 10 men after Rodrigo’s dismissal.
Atletico got off to a brilliant start when Fernando Torres opened the scoring from Koke’s pass after two minutes. Diego Simeone had left inspirational central defender Diego Godin and top scorer Antoine Griezmann on the bench and was made to pay when Victor Casadesus headed Levante level on the half hour mark.
Griezmann was introduced for the second half and came closest to finding a winner for Atletico when Diego Marino turned his near post effort wide 15 minutes from time.
But Giuseppe Rossi finished off a sweeping Levante counter-attack in the final minute to end Atletico’s hopes of an unlikely second title in three years. —AFP
Results:
Las Palmas 0 drew with Athletic Bilbao 0,
Villarreal 0 lt to Deportivo La Coruna 2 (Fajr 32, Lucas Perez 57),
Real Madrid 3 (Ronaldo 26, 58, Benzema 42) bt Valencia 2 (Rodrigo 55, Andre Gomes 81),
Getafe 1 (Scepovic 80) drew with Sporting Gijon 1 (Alvarez 50),
Celta Vigo 1 (Nolito 31) bt Malaga 0,
Eibar 1 (Sergi 73) drew with Real Betis 1 (Ruben Castro 37),
Barcelona 5 (Messi 8, Suarez 52, 61, Rafa 74, Neymar 83) bt Espanyol 0,
Sevilla 1 (Gonzalez 74) lt to Granada 4 (Cuenca 45+1, 88, Babin 79, El-Arabi 86-pen),
Real Sociedad 2 (Oiarzabal 12, Bautista 50) bt Rayo Vallecano 1 (Guerra 69),
Levante 2 (Casadesus 30, Rossi 90) lt to Atletico Madrid 1 (Torres 2)
